Elon Musk’s DOGE ‘will assess government employee emails using AI’

Email responses to Elon Musk’s request for at-work accomplishments will be assessed using AI in a new DOGE initiative.

On Friday, February 21, Elon Musk, as leader of the new federal department DOGE, asked government employees to send an email with a summary of their at-work achievements. Not doing so would result in them losing their job, according to Musk.

“All federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week,” he wrote on X. “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”

Consistent with President @realDonaldTrump’s instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week.

Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 22, 2025

The Office of Personal Management did then send out an email, confirming Musk’s post, asking for “approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager”, with an extra note to “not send any classified information, links, or attachments” and a deadline of Monday, February 24 at 11:59pm EST.

Sources have now (February 25) told NBC that the reason no attachments should be sent was because the information would be fed into AI for processing and analysing. The goal is to understand what work was critical to the roles in question and echoes Musk’s push for an AI-driven overhaul of federal work.

Federal departments have responded differently to the request, with the OPM later telling agencies that responses are voluntary – contradicting Musk’s original claim of taking a lack of response as resignation.

Musk took to X once again to complain about the backlash to the initiative late on Monday, February 24.

“The email request was utterly trivial, as the standard for passing the test was to type some words and press send!” he wrote. “Yet so many failed even that inane test, urged on in some cases by their managers. Have you ever witnessed such INCOMPETENCE and CONTEMPT for how YOUR TAXES are being spent?”

The email request was utterly trivial, as the standard for passing the test was to type some words and press send!

Yet so many failed even that inane test, urged on in some cases by their managers.

Have you ever witnessed such INCOMPETENCE and CONTEMPT for how YOUR TAXES are… https://t.co/QjSmY4ezpg

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 24, 2025

In a follow-up tweet, Musk claimed that a second email could be sent to those who didn’t respond to the first one, provided President Donald Trump agrees.

“Subject to the discretion of the President, they will be given another chance,” he wrote on X. “Failure to respond a second time will result in termination.”

President Trump appears to have given the directive his stamp of approval, telling reporters in the Oval Office during a visit from French President Emmanuel Macron that he “though it was great”.

“We have people that don’t show up to work and nobody even knows if they work for the government, so by asking the question ‘tell us what you did this week,’ what he’s doing is saying are you actually working,” the president continued. “And then, if you don’t answer, like, you’re sort of semi-fired or you’re fired.”

“There was a lot of genius in sending it,” President Trump added. “If people don’t respond, it’s very possible that there is no such person or they’re not working.”

Featured image: Midjourney

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